


First Comes Deadman

by Jakowic



Series: Necrom ‘verse [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Gen, Necromancy, discussion of trauma, ressurection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakowic/pseuds/Jakowic
Summary: Jason Todd, newly undead completely ordinary charity case, wakes up in a glowing green pit with powers he’s never had before. The woman dressed in black swears she’ll help, if he does her a favor in return.(prequel to Fear These Good Omens, works as a standalone)
Series: Necrom ‘verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727380
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	First Comes Deadman

There are hands --

There are hands, and

he's falling --

he's

he's falling

Someone's got their hands on him --

He gasps awake (someone's screaming, and it isn't until his throat starts to feel like its being rubbed with sandpaper that he realizes he's the one screaming) in a green pool. He's got bandages all over his body, and when he looks down at his hands he realizes he's ripped the ones on his face off. He can see, not that there's much to see, he's in a dark cave, in a green pit. The pit glows, which lights up a portion of the cave, but otherwise there's nothing.

"My name is..." ( _my name is..._ ) he tests his voice out into the empty space. It bounces back to him, all around, an echo. He knows what that is: echo. That seems significant in the moment, that he knows what an echo is.

He tests out his limbs next, wiggling his fingers and his feet.

( _my name is..._ )

Everything seems to work, he distinctly remembers thinking that that's wrong. He shouldn't be working.

He climbs out of the pit, or pool, or indent in the cave floor that holds glowing green liquid (mountain dew? what _is_ that?) and stands on wobbly legs. They're not used to holding his weight anymore, there's a reason for that (what is the reason?) and he braces himself on the lip of the pit, holding himself up. He's dripping the green liquid everywhere, and the bandages are flimsy and stuck to him like a second skin. He'd been dunked in -- and it's cold in this cave. He scowls.

There's a movement in one of the dark recesses, the corners where the pit light doesn't reach. He has the wherewithal to be wary, but nothing to protect himself with, and he

he

there's a 

It's a tall woman, in black and green, and she has high cheekbones and a red-painted mouth. Her hair is long and straight, it goes all the way down to her waist, and when she smiles, her teeth glitter stark-white against the gray pallor of her skin.

"Do not be afraid," she says.

And he's

he's so

there's something under his skin

fear?

(is he _afraid?_ his stomach is tight and his skin is itchy, and)

and there's something

Shadows whip past him, sharp like arrows, heading straight for her. They might impale her, they might kill her, he thinks, but maybe then his stomach will loosen and he can relax. Maybe he should get back into the pool. At least it was warm in there. She raises a hand and waves it, dismissive and casual. His shadows careen off to the left, melting ineffectually back into the darkness of the cave.

He remembers, vaguely, that he's never been able to do that before.

"I can help you," she says.

☠☠☠

At the risk of sounding cliche: he was born in the darkness, so it stands to reason that he would be reborn in the darkness.

They sit by the pit for three days, and he won't let her come close so she doesn't. She talks occasionally, says that she wants to teach him to use his power, to control it. During these three days, snatches of himself start to come back. Inconsequential memories.

(his mom, the way his apartment used to smell, his adoptive family, his mom lying dead on the kitchen floor, his last birthday, his favorite jacket, the taste of mincemeat pie)

He hangs onto the side of the pit like it's a piece of driftwood in the middle of the sea. The shadows writhe all around him, touching him, sliding against the exposed parts of his skin. They're a comforting feeling, like silk sheets, like hot cocoa after playing in the snow ( _that's important,_ his brain stubbornly insists, _that's important!_ ), comforting like a blanket on his shoulders. He reaches out to touch the shadow -- it's ice-cold, which soothes his overheated skin.

The lady in the shadows is singing a lullaby.

_Rock-a-bye_

_baby_

He knows it: that tune, that song. It's foreign in her voice, but

_in the treetop_

He tries to think, tries to call it up. Where is that from? Who's voice is it in his head? Who

_when the wind blows_

_the cradle_

There's a scream building in his lungs, a shriek so violent it could

_will rock_

shatter the sound barrier all on its own. He can feel it in his throat, right under his windpipe. He wants, god. He wants

_when the bough breaks_

to go home. He wants --

_the cradle will fall_

"I want," he starts, his voice is scratchy and thready and unfamiliar. "I want to go home."

She looks up at him. Her beetle black eyes glint off the light from the pit, a sparkle that is less whimsical and more maniacal. She smiles at him, that blood-red smile that looks more like a threat than a comfort and he

he

he's falling

(fear?)

"I can arrange that. But first," she climbs to her feet, dusts the cave dirt from the skirt of her dress. "you'll have to do something for me."

He stands ( _can my legs take my weight, will I fall, will I fall, will I fall_ ) and follows her deeper into the cave. The shadows are there, a comfort.

☠☠☠

She gives him clothes (shadow clothes, like her's, cool to the touch and black) and shows him one of the natural divets in the cave walls. It looks like a small room. There's nothing in it, except for a cot that hangs off the back wall. She lets him dress, then she takes him deeper into the cave system, to a high ceilinged mouth, like a circular room carved into the rock wall. It's huge, and echoing, and she lights torches lining the walls with a flick of her wrist.

He spins around, slowly, looking at it with awe. The shadows pull at him, yanking, and Jason feels it burst, one two three,

they're everywhere

darkness is sliding out of him, and this is

fun.

He registers it at the last moment, tries to yank it all back but he

can't and he

there's a.

He crumples to his knees, and all at once the shadows leave him. The torches flicker in the absence of his magic. The woman gives him a thin-lipped, disapproving smile.

"Your first lesson: control."

☠☠☠

He's gagging on the sulfur smell, the smell that emanates off of the shadows when he uses them. She'd placed a small clay pot twenty paces in front of him and said: Pick it up. And he'd tried, reaching out with a thin tendril of darkness, trying to make the shadow _obey,_ but he'd just smashed it. She'd put down another and said _again._ There's a pile of shards now, and he's on his knees, panting hard. The smell has filled the cavern, made the air thick and poisonous.

She puts down another one.

"Again."

So, he tries. He envisions a hand, (the echo of her voice: _the shadows are an extension of your body. Do not fight it, control it. Control it!_ ) snaking itself off the apex of his arm, extending, extending, gently. He has to be gentle

he can't be gentle

kindness isn't in his skin, it's

murder

(there's blood on his hands and he doesn't know who's)

He loses control. It shoots out, whip quick, and smashes through the pot. The shatter of it hurts his ears. She sighs, a melancholy sound. He clutches his head in his hands, threading through the greasy strands of his hair. He breathes through his mouth to hide from the sulfur, but he can taste it, the heavy metallic burn right on the center of his tongue. He hurts.

"I hurt," he says.

She shifts, skirts swinging with the movement of her hips. "I'm sure you do."

He wants his mom, his home. He wants the salt-sting in his lungs from the dirty harbor. He wants the burn of a cigarette, the locked door of his room as he listened to music way too loud. Who is he now? Who is the boy in his memory, wearing his clothes, and knowing what he knows? Where did he come from, what was he before someone dropped him into that pit? He's desperate, suddenly, to know everything. To spell out the blank parts of his memory, to write in the gaps his brain can't fill.

"What am I?" he asks, looking up at her through his eyelashes. He's a boy on his knees, tear tracks staining his cheeks (when did he start crying, when did he start anything) asking, asking, asking.

"You are an abomination," she says, the whites of her teeth flashing sharply in the darkness, compassionless.

☠☠☠

He doesn't know how long he sleeps, just that he doesn't like it, and when he wakes up she's standing above him. She's holding a pitcher and a plate. He takes them from her.

"In the cavern in thirty minutes," she says and melts away.

He drinks the water in the pitcher and eats the food on the plate. He doesn't know how to tell thirty minutes has passed, so he puts the empty dishware onto the floor by his cot and walks to the cavern. He asks the shadows _which way_ and they pull him, show him. 

She's standing in the center of the cavern, little clay pot at her feet. He waits for her to notice him so he doesn't startle her by moving or speaking. When she does, she gestures to the pot, an invitation. So he puts out his hand, asks the darkness to slide off his limbs, and tendril out. He moves too fast and the whip smashes the pot.

"Again," she says, setting another one down.

Yesterday's shards had been cleared away, and the sulfur had disapparated.

He feels, rather suddenly, that this will never end.

☠☠☠

He goes from clay pots to flicking the flames out of candles, then he goes to opening jars, to folding clothes, to peeling fruit. He sleeps little, eats little, drinks little, but he grows persistently. He feels like a bottomless pit (some part of him knows he's always felt like that) and he thinks: _this will never end._

Today, she woke him up, pressed a kiss to his forehead, gave him food and water, and took him to the cavern. She'd taught him meditation, and tried ("What's that?" "It's a projector, dear. This is a slideshow of your life before this.") to repair his mind. They sit side by side, weaving a baskets -- her with her hands, him with his shadows.

"You can kill anything you want," she says idly. "There's a whole other side to your power."

He feels the shadows stumble on the braid of the wicker, but he keeps his eyes closed and his posture straight. He thinks about that: kill anything. Anything. 


End file.
